Monday, February 27, 2012

So to start things off we turned in the isopod lab that we worked on last week.

We then jumped right into the Starfish dissection lab. First dissection I have ever done that did not smell really bad so if you were not there, you missed out. Hah. Essentially, the idea of the lab was to open up and observe the parts of the starfish and to also improve our dissecting abilities. We even broke open the goggles drawer and popped those on so we knew right away that it was about to get real from there on. The lab was on page 63-66 and was pretty self-explanatory. It listed the parts of the starfish we would observe on the front page of the lab(63) and after reading the descriptions of each piece and their location, finding them was easy. For those of you not there today, I am assuming you will not be given another chance to dissect a starfish so I'll tell you what I got at the very least for each blank.

1. 5 rays

2. rough and hard

3. they have very rough skin

4. hard

5. it has 5 pyloric ceca

6. 5 gonad pairs

7. one

8a. ventral

8b. underneath it

9a. dorsal

9b. on top of it

10a. system for transporting blood

10b. blood

11a. its transportation system for moving water to move and get food as a result

11b. water

12. 5 radial canals

13. one circular canal

14. 5 tube feet

A tip for the first question is the phrase penta radial symmetry. I highly recommend looking this word up as my definition-something that can be divided into 5 sections each with the same internal and external structure-may not do the phrase justice or may not completely make sense to you.

Don't forget to do page 66 (its on the back of the lab)!!!

When we finished the lab we watched a movie about bugs for about ten minutes. To some it up in a sentence: Bugs are everywhere, they are some of the most successful organisms on the planet, and the ones on land are eerily similar to their ancestors in the water.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

To start things off in class today, we turned in UP pgs. 35-36 and we got UP pg 37 stamped.

The rest of class we finished up the animal notes. Here they are:

The Evolution of Multicellularity (We might of done this before but I can't remember exactly, so I will put them in just in case)

Animals probably evolved from a colonial, flagellated protist that lived in Precambrian seas.

By the late Precambrian, animals were already diverse.

At the beginning of the Cambrian period, animal diversity exploded.

Over about 10 million years ago, all the major animal body plans existing today evolved.

Early Animals and the Cambrian Explosion

In the last half-billion years, animal evolution has mainly generated new variations of old "Designs" that originated in the Cambrian Seas

This "explosion of diversity" in the Cambrian period marked the fossil record as the beginning of the Paleozoic era.

The "explosion" could be due to increasingly complex predator-prey relationships that led to diverse adaptations for feeding, motility, and protection. (ex: shells or hard exoskeleton evolved vs. earlier soft-bodies.)

Or, the explosion could be due to variation in how and when, and where genes that control the development of animal form are exposed. (ex: placement of body parts in embryos can produce major differences int he phyla)

Animal Phylogeny

To reconstruct the evolutionary history of animal phyla, researchers must depend on clues from comparative anatomy and embryology

This diagram represents one set of hypotheses about evolutionary relationships among nine major animal phyla.

Body Symmetry

Radial symmetry--animals that are arranged around a central axis. A single cut through the middle of the organism in any direction should produce two equal halves (kind of like a pizza)

Bilateral symmetry--A single longitudinal cut only in one direction will produce two equal halves.

Annelids are worms with body segmentation, the division of the body along its length into a series of repeated parts.

Annelids consist of about 15,000 species

Range in length from 1mm to 3m long

Live int he sea, most freshwater habitats, and damp soil

The three major classes of annelids are stated in the title.

Farmers value the earthworm because they eat their way through the soil, extracting nutrients, tilling the soil, and producing nutrients which improve the texture of the soil

Polychaetes are marine; crawl or burrow in the seafloor

Polychaetes have segmented appendages and hard bristles that help the worm move. The appendages also increase the animals surface are for gas exchange and elimination of metabolic wastes

Leeches include medicine, until the 20th century for blood-letting.

Leeches are currently used as a source or anticoagulant and to help relieve swelling in reattached fingers and toes

6. Phylum Mollusca-Snails, Slugs, Clams, Octopuses, and Squid

Mollusks are soft-bodied animals

Are usually protected by a hard shell (Although slugs, squids, and octopuses have either reduced shells, most of which are internal or none at all.)

Often feed by using a straplike rasping organ called a radula to scrape up food.

Consist of about 150,000 species that are primarily marine, although some inhabit fresh water (snails, clams) and some live on land (snails, slugs)

All Mollusks have a similar body plan with three main parts: a muscular foot, usually used for movement, a visceral mass containing most of the internal organs, and a fold of tissue called the mantle that drapes over the visceral mass, and secretes the shell if one is present.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Today, we turned in our Hydra/Planaria lab (and also reviewed the answers to the questions), and we got back pages 15-18 and 11-14, and the Lab #44.

We also completed pages 7-10 in our note packet, all about the protist kingdom--extra info can be found in Chapter 15, pages 311-316 in our textbook. To sum up all the information, with key points as written in our packet:

Protists are the first eukaryotes to evolve from prokaryote (bacteria) ancestors; they are much more complex than prokaryotes.

How did eukaryote cells, as well as their membrane-enclosed organelles, evolve?

2 theories of these processes:

All organelles (except mitochondria and chloroplasts) evolved from inward folds of the plasma membrane of a prokaryotic cell.

Endosymbiosis: Largely developed by Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts:

"Chloroplasts and Mitochondria evolved from small prokaryotes that established residence in other, larger host prokaryotes."

Mitochondria evolved 1st

Protists vary in structure and function more than any other group or organism

MOST are unicellular, but some are colonial or multicellular.

The four major categories are:

Protozoans: They ingest food and thrive in all types of aquatic environments, including wet soil and the watery environment inside animals (parasites).

Slime Molds: Resemble fungi in appearance and lifestyle, but are NOT closely related at all... Role=decomposers

Next, we filled out unit packet page 33, "Examining a Phylogenetic Tree", as a class. Lastly, we did a lab on page 35 in our unit packets, in which we classified real organisms (around the classroom--from centipedes to scorpions) based on their appearances into the correct phylum.

The homework for tonight is:

To finish the "General Classification of Invertebrates" lab (pages 35-38)

Prep for labs on pages 45-54

The "Nature" assignment (due 3/2)

And to read CH 17 if you haven't already!!!

(It also might be a good idea to read up on pill bugs, just to get a little background knowledge for an upcoming lab)

Monday, February 20, 2012

After collecting last night's homework (UP pp. 15-26: your choice), and prepping both labs (#2 and #3, as shown on left) we started working on the labs.

Lab 1: Live Hydrapreface: answering the pre-lab questionsobjective: observe how live hydra move around, and how hydra react to certain outside movements.materials: Slide of preserved budding hydra, living specimens of hydra, conclave slides, microscopes, Dapnia or fish foodprocedures: observe the hydra, tap it with a toothpick (record reactions), feed it food (record reactions)Lab 2: Live Planaria preface: The flatworm is the freshwater planarian, aka Dugesia.objective: observe how live flatworms move around, and how hydra react to certain outside movements.materials: Petri Dish with a flatworm inside, ruler, microscope, pipetteprocedures: observe the flatworm, turn it over to see if it is right or left "handed" (record reactions), feed it food and see where it's mouth is located (record reactions)*We did not do the "Planarian Reproduction Class Demo" listed on page 42.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Today in class was an overall laid back day because our Unit test is coming up on Monday. What we did in class included...

Went over part of our homework

We specifically went over pages 63 and 65.

The order that the images went from oldest to most recent was:

D, C, (E, F), H, A, G, B -> E and F are in parenthesis because they were alive at the same time

Finished taking notes in notes packet

We had a note page that was not in our packet, but it said:

Science Breakthrough of 2001 Ardipithecus ramidus.

- rare skeleton

-4.4 million years old

- unlike living apes or later homonids

- walked upright-the historical defining trait of a member of the human family

- lived in woodlands , not open grassy terrain

Homo Habilis, Homo erectus, and the neanderthals are three different species that were included in our notes

Homo sapiens are regionally diverse and the oldest Homo Sapien is over 300,000 years old which can include neanderthals

- we are homo sapiens sapiens

Multiregional hypothesis- modern humans evolved simultaneously in different parts of the world. Accounts for genetic similarity due to interbreeding among neighboring populations----- one hypothesis of what happened to Homo erectus descendants

1st graph

"Out of Africa" hypothesis- modern humans arose from a single archeac group in Africa who spread out of Africa 100,000 years ago, some of which became genetic dead ends. (genetic evidence mostly supports this) ----- second hypothesis of what happened to Homo erectus descendants

question number 19 is c because 160/500 =1/4 = .25. .25 represents q^2. and because the question is asking 'what is the frequency of the undesirable allele in the herd?' we know that we need to find q. Therefore we took the square root of .25 to get q which is .5. Therefore the answer was C.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Today we did notes and then we did a lab about dating fossils. We also watched a video briefly explaining the process of evolution on earth

Notes-Human Ancestry, pages 16-20

Evolution of Primates

-Primates evolved from insect eating mammals around 65 million years ago

-Early primates were small, tree dwelling

-Primates have limber shoulder joints, dexterous hands,

Placement of eyes for good depth perception,Good hand eye coordination, increased care for their young

2 Primate groups

-Prosimians-small, tree dwelling-Lemurs,Lorises,Pottos, Tarsiers

-Anthropoids-Old/New world Monkeys, Apes, Humans

Our closest Anthropoid relatives are apes, We share a common ancestor with them closer than any other Anthropoid

Slowly, over millions of years, we diverged from a common ancestor of us and modern Chimps, due to traits such as fully upright posture, increased dexterity, and a larger brain

See notes on Moodle for examples of Hominids that were found as fossils

Video

We watched a short cartoon explaining evolution on earth, and were asked to take bullet points of major events. This is my list.

-Unicellular organisms in water-asexual reproduction

-Multi-cellular organisms-mutation

-underwater plants

-Underwater predators-fish

-animals crawl on land

-Land dwellers interact with each other-develop sexual reproduction

-Predators on land-mutations allow some to survive

-climate change-survival of the fittest

-Bipedalism

Lab

We did a lab to simulate Radiometric dating (UP pages 53-55). We used m&m's to simulate the amount of carbon 14 in an organism. We started out with 100, and then shook them up in a cup and poured them out on a plate. The ones that had the M facing up on it were taken out. This simulated one half life. We repeated the process until all m&m's were taken away. If you weren't here, these are my results.

# after 1st half life-47 time elapsed(seconds)-10

#after 2nd half life-20 Time elapsed-10

#after 3rd half life-10 time elapsed-10

#after 4th half life-5 time elapsed-10

#after 5th half life-2 time elapsed-10

#after 6th half life-1 time elapsed-10

#after 7th half life-0 time elapsed-10

total time elapsed-70

scribe-Xavier F.

Next scribe....Jex, and don't pawn it off on anyone, just man up and do it for once

Urey and Miller designed an apparatus that simulated conditions on early earth. They created an experiment showing how earth formed.

In 1862, Louis Pasteur, using bacteria, proved :life-from-life," or bio-genesis.

some of the first cells(prokaryotes) flourished at least 3.5 billion years ago, bacteria was unicellular, anaerobic, and heterotrophic.

The history of earth shows species dying out while others flourish, like the dinosaurs which became extinct in less then 10 million years. fossil record showed that during this time, climate cooled, shallow seas receded and a large meteorite hit the earth.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Part I: Intro and Review

Today in Biology the class the class continued its study on evolution. At the start of class the students were to check in pgs. 33-36. After being checked in, the class went over these pages and reviewed the answers. No new lessons or concepts were introduced today but there was however a lab reviewing old concepts such as survival of the fittest and natural selection, the lab was meant to review these concept.

Part II: Lab

Materials

- 3 tree backrounds (1 white, 1 black, 1 grey)

- 40 light moths

-40 dark moths

-stopwatch

Procedures

-Acquire the materials from the side desks if not already at your lab station

- Decide which person in your group (group of 4) will be the time keeper, the predator and the moth placers

- While the predator turns away from the lab station the moth placers must place 5 white and 5 black moths on the tree bark background they were asssigned to test on.

- As soon as all the moths have been placed the predator is to turn to the bark and pick up the moths that he sees. The timekeeper is to set the timer for 10 seconds, that is the time the predator has to search for moths.

- Count the ammount of survivors and replace them on the background while the predator turns around. Repeat the prior steps for 3 generations.

- Once these steps are completed begin on analysis questions on page 5 of the packet.

The lab was meant to show how due to certian moths being camaflouged, they get to survive from the predators while their fellow moths get preyed on. This is supposed to show how if not suited to survive in your enviorment your traits will become extinct. This lab was meant to show natural selection and survival of the fittest in a real life sceneario.

Today in Biology the class the class continued its study on evolution. At the start of class the students were to check in pgs. 33-36. After being checked in, the class went over these pages and reviewed the answers. No new lessons or concepts were introduced today but there was however a lab reviewing old concepts such as survival of the fittest and natural selection, the lab was meant to review these concept.

Procedures-Acquire the materials from the side desks if not already at your lab station

- Decide which person in your group (group of 4) will be the time keeper, the predator and the moth placers

- While the predator turns away from the lab station the moth placers must place 5 white and 5 black moths on the tree bark background they were asssigned to test on.

- As soon as all the moths have been placed the predator is to turn to the bark and pick up the moths that he sees. The timekeeper is to set the timer for 10 seconds, that is the time the predator has to search for moths.

- Count the ammount of survivors and replace them on the background while the predator turns around. Repeat the prior steps for 3 generations.

- Once these steps are completed begin on analysis questions on page 5 of the packet.

The lab was meant to show how due to certian moths being camaflouged, they get to survive from the predators while their fellow moths get preyed on. This is supposed to show how if not suited to survive in your enviorment your traits will become extinct. This lab was meant to show natural selection and survival of the fittest in a real life sceneario.